John Townes Van Zandt, better known as Townes Van Zandt, was an American singer-songwriter. He wrote numerous songs that are widely considered masterpieces of American folk music.
This reissue of a 1993 live album was never intended to memorialize Townes Van Zandt (in the saddest of posthumous ironies, its Sugar Hill sleeve includes a phone number to call for bookings), Originally released by Sundown, a tiny Austin indie with limited distribution, the 17-song set finds Van Zandt in fine form — upbeat, gracious, apparently sober — and in good company, with fiddler Owen Cody and guitarist Danny Rowland adding a dimension of musical enhancement that never overwhelms the nuances of the material. As anyone who ever saw Van Zandt fall off a stool recognizes, there was no such thing as a typical Townes performance, but when he was good, no one working in the Texas troubadour tradition has ever been better.
While the hallmark of Van Zandt’s songwriting was his ability to render the most profound insights in the most plain-spoken language, the literary part of his artistry was but an element of the musical equation. His voice fit his melodies the way his melodies fit his meaning, each reinforcing the others. The result was a uniquely metaphysical brand of blues, a seamless synthesis of Lightnin’ Hopkins and Hank Williams, Woody Guthrie and Soren Kierkegaard. The laconic resignation in his voice was that of a man staring, unflinching, into the abyss, while his softer side found solace in tender mercies, those that helped but could not last. Listeners only familiar with this album’s higher-profile material in more popular renditions by Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard (“Pancho & Lefty”), Don Williams and Emmylou Harris (“If I Needed You”) or Nanci Griffith and Arlo Guthrie (“Tecumseh Valley”) may have heard the tunes, heard the words, but they haven’t really heard the songs until they’ve heard Townes.
Predictably, the album finds Van Zandt providing his own best epitaph:
Hooveriii are back and after four albums of extra-dimensional exploration, the band deliver ‘Manhunter’, a certified ripper with the controls set directly for the heart of the cosmic groove.
The first single and video locked and loaded for you on their site and have this to say: “Cali’s own fever dream denizens, Hooveriii, follow up one of their most meticulous albums, 2023’s prog-stacked stunner ‘Pointe’, with one of their most immediate. Trading layered psych-pop sundries for the cathartic crunch of guitars, the new album tears out of the speakers on the ozone burn of “Westside Pavilion of Dreams.” Recorded with Eric Bauer at the short-lived psych-punk pressure cooker Discount Mirrors, the new album lets the amps sweat and the hooks grow large.”
After four albums of extra-dimensional exploration, Hooveriii delivered “Manhunter” with the controls set directly for the heart of the cosmic groove. Expertly synthesizing their influences and still managing to bring even more to the party, from spiky post punk to beautiful new age excursions and mammoth 70’s arena rock hooks, “Manhunter” delivers not only their best album yet but an instant classic for all the psych-heads, stoners and dimensionauts.
Get your hands on the web exclusive “Heavenly Gates” pressing, limited to just 300 copies
In the autumn of 1972, Plainsong released their beautiful debut album “In Search of Amelia Earhart”. It was the height of the golden era of English folk rock. The record received universal critical acclaim for its musicianship and sublime singing, but just three months after its release the group disbanded in acrimony.
In the fifty years that have followed the album’s release, what we know about the original incarnation of Plainsong has been shrouded in myth and misinformation. “The Search for Plainsong” tells the true story of the group and their classic album for the first time. It is a cautionary tale told through the voices of the key protagonists and those who were lucky enough to see Plainsong in full flight or bought the album first time round. Plainsong, formed in London in late 1971; comprised of singer Iain Matthews, who with Matthews Southern Comfort had a worldwide hit with Joni Mitchell’s song ‘Woodstock’; former Liverpool Scene and Everyone guitarist Andy Roberts; piano and bass player David Richards; and the New York guitarist Bobby Ronga. The four met at Iain’s north London flat in December 1971 after recording and playing together in various combinations over the previous couple of months. They spent the afternoon working out an arrangement of ‘Along Comes Mary’, a Tandyn Almer song that had been a 1966 US hit for The Association, and agreed that if it worked they would go ahead and become a band. They worked throughout 1972, touring the UK and Europe, recording numerous sessions for the BBC plus two excellent albums (the second of which remained unreleased until 2005) before breaking up at the end of that year as Iain headed to California to begin a new career as a solo artist.
“In Search of Amelia Earhart” remains a folk-rock classic. For those who don’t know it, it might just be the greatest debut album you never heard.
‘A group that doesn’t come up and sock you in the eye, all decibels blaring, but kind of sneaks up and insinuates itself into your psyche almost before you have begun to notice it. By that time you are hooked by its gentle genius.’ – Karl Dallas, Melody Maker
‘In Search of Amelia Earhart” is, and let us not mince words, the finest display of gentle, sometimes liltingly so, English folkiness and rockabilly to surface in a long while.’ Cameron Crowe, San Diego Door
‘A startlingly fine album.’ Charles Shaar Murray, NME, This 6CD box set, released some 50 years after their 1972 debut with ‘In Search Of Amelia Earhart’, not only contains that album digitally remastered from the original tapes but also the ‘Now We Are 3’ second album, alongside a host of previously unissued tracks from Iain and Andy’s own archives and from the collections of fans worldwide.
Contains over 50% previously unreleased material, including: several rare 1970s BBC recordings, the full original 1972 Folk Fairport concert in Amsterdam, and excerpts from the very first concert by the reformed Plainsong in Mayrhofen, Austria in 1993. Plus 2020 remakes of Amelia songs originally recorded to accompany Ian Clayton’s book In Search Of Plainsong.
The Deluxe Edition comes with a CD of a previously unheard Plainsong concert,
Experience Hawkwind like never before!. “A Quiet Night In with Hawkwind” at Stamford Corn Exchange Theatre on Wednesday 16th April will feature exclusive improvised performances and stories from Dave Brock and co, sharing highlights from their incredible career that began in 1969.
Toronto’s favourite pop-punk band PUP are back! Their fifth album, “Who Will Look After the Dogs?”, is set to arrive May 2nd via Little Dipper/RiseRecords. The project comes nearly three years after the band’s last, the very sweet and whole-hearted “The Unraveling of PUPTHEBAND”.
They’re also previewing what’s to come with new single “Hallways“, with Stefan sharing of the story behind it:
“I wrote the lyrics for “Hallways” while all that was going on. It was a weird fucking week. The title of our new record, “Who Will Look After The Dogs?“, is what I wrote at the top of the page, the very first thing written for this album. I think it’s devastating, but in a ‘holy shit this is overdramatic’ kinda way. At least in context of the line that comes before it. That’s what makes it funny to us.
“That overblown stuff we all say in our dark moments can be hilarious once you’ve cooled off a bit. I don’t know if anyone else thinks it’s funny, but sometimes you gotta laugh at yourself. It’s the only way out of the abyss. Trust me.”
The Canadian punk faves are Stefan Babcock, Nestor Chumak, Zack Mykula and Steve Sladkowski
New album ‘Who Will Look After The Dogs’ out 2nd May via Rise Records.
Sleigh Bells (Alexis Krauss and Derek E. Miller) have announced a new album, “Bunky Becky Birthday Boy”, and shared a new song from it, “Bunky Pop,” via a music video. “Bunky Becky Birthday Boy” is due out April 4th via Mom + Pop Music.
Miller had this to say about “Bunky Pop” in a press release: “We wanted the track to sound like a dog having the best moment of her life without any of the burden of self consciousness. ‘Bunky Pop’ informed the entire record, and Bunky Becky kind of became a character woven into every song. We wanted to give her a friend, Roxette Ric, so we could play with a little bit of autobiography and fiction as well.”
Of the album’s title, Miller adds: “‘Bunky Becky’ was a nickname for Alexis’ dog Riz, who passed away in December 2023. When she passed away, Alexis and I had been talking about writing an anthem for her. And then Alexis’ son Wilder was born, and he’s the birthday boy. Even though the title sounds a little ridiculous—and it’s totally okay to laugh at it—with a little bit of context, it’s actually life and death. We lost somebody that we love, and we gained somebody that we love.”
Sleigh Bells’ new album “Bunky Becky Birthday Boy” releases 4/4/2025 on Mom+Pop Music
L.A. Witch have always exuded an aura of effortless cool, whether it manifested as the Americana noir and laconic back-to-basics rock n’ roll of their self-titled debut or the blistering austere adventurism of their sophomore album “Play With Fire”. The band—comprised of Sade Sanchez (guitar/vocals), Irita Pai (bass), and Ellie English (drums)—began as an informal affair, but the sultry and beguiling reverb-draped songs they created caught on with the public, moving the project beyond the insular space of the band’s friends and peers in Southern California into the broader world. On their latest album, “DOGGOD”, the trio push their craft beyond their previous creative and geographical confines, opting to craft the material in Paris, recording the tracks at Motorbass Studio on the Rue de Martyrs. “DOGGOD” explores broader swaths of sonic terrain, employs a greater arsenal of tones, and probes larger existential and cosmic themes, all while retaining the band’s signature sense of the forbidden, the forsaken, and the foreboding.
“DOGGOD” is a way of tackling the universal riddle tangled in the spiritual nature of love and devotion. “I feel like I’m some sort of servant or slave to love,” says Sanchez. “There’s a willingness to die for love in the process of serving it or suffering for it or in search of it… just in the way a loyal, devoted servant dog would.” The album title is a palindrome fusing together DOG and GOD—an exaltation of the submissive and a subversion of the divine. It’s a nod to the purity of dogs and an acknowledgement of their unconditional love and protective nature that’s at odds with the various pejoratives associated with the species. “There is this symbolic connection between women and dogs that expresses women’s subordinate position in society,” Sanchez explains. “And anything that embodies such divine characteristics never deserved to be a word used as an insult.”
These conflicted explorations of love and subservience manifest themselves in L.A. Witch’s fusion of their trademark smooth and smoky garage alchemy with a newfound utilization of post-punk’s disciplined reserve and icy instrumentation. Album opener “Icicle” captures the band journeying out of the proto-punk, psychedelia, and gritty riffage of the ‘70s into the chorus-drenched guitars and forlorn minimalism of Joy Division and early The Cure. A parallel is drawn between romantic suicide and martyrdom that carries over into the second song, “Kiss Me Deep.” Here Sanchez describes a love so pure that it transcends time and carries over into multiple lifetimes. It’s a song about passion delivered in the worldly and wounded stoicism of early goth pioneers. From there, the band segues into the lead single “777,” a song about devotion to the point of death. A propulsive beat, a driving distorted riff, and Sanchez’s ethereal vocals come together to create a song that’s both dire in its fatalism and sensual in its faithful passion.
Across the entirety of “DOGGOD”, L.A. Witch never strays from their muse. On “I Hunt You Pray,” Pai lays down a hypnotic bass throb while English employs a cyclical krautrock groove and Sanchez paints a picture of an abandoned dog on the roadside, alone in the night, living as both the hunter and the hunted. On “Eyes of Love,” the band harnesses the meditative mid-tempo repetition, deconstructed chords, and esoteric ruminations on love, death, and spirituality that made Lungfish such a beloved entity. It reinforces the parallel between the unwavering love seen in the eyes of a dog and the self-sacrifice of a savior. On “The Lines,” the band takes the propulsive pulse of post-punk and adds an extra dose of chorus to the mix. “Chorus is a modern effect that comes from the idea of replicating the slight pitch discrepancies of a choir. There is a shimmering quality which ties us back into this spiritual godly feel,” Sanchez explains. Coupled with the addition of organ and applied to a brooding minor-key melody, the song simultaneously conjures both the holy and the sacrilegious. The title track “DOGGOD” bears perhaps the strongest resemblance to the material found on the previous album “Play With Fire“, pitting lean and mean guitars against a scrappy rhythm section and dreamy vocals. But whereas their previous album was a rallying cry to carving one’s own path, “DOGGOD” adheres to the album’s “til death do us part” theme, going so far as to describe a level of submission that crosses over into dangerous and unhealthy places, with Sanchez singing “hang me on a leash / ‘til I wait for my release.”
Ultimately, “DOGGOD” is a perfect encapsulation of L.A. Witch’s approach. It’s simultaneously romantic and menacing, reverent and profane, a celebration and a lament. It finds the thread between the past and present, taking familiar sounds and revamping them for the modern age. But it also heralds a new era for the band, looking beyond the Kodachrome memories of midcentury America and digging deeper into the medieval and gothic energies of Paris and beyond, all while probing inward at a sullied heart. Suicide Squeeze is proud to release “DOGGOD” to the world on April 4th, 2025.
Sade Sanchez – Vocals/Guitar/Synth Irita Pai – Bass Ellie English – Drums
“Erotica Veronica” is the third full-length album from the Californian singer-songwriter Miya Folick. Her first entirely self-produced effort, it finds Folick delving deeper into themes of intimacy and vulnerability, on a set of songs that balance sonic restraint with a lyrical boldness. For fans of boygenius or Big Thief.
After her last album, 2023’s “Roach”. The album mined the depths of the LA-based artist’s psyche amidst a sea of synths and guitar, each song landing with the weight of a film’s climactic resolution. “Exhaustion,” after such output, was inevitable, so Folick hibernated and recharged her creative energies. But then, “at some point, the ideas just started coming,” .
The result of that ideation is “Erotica Veronica” (out February 28th via Nettwerk), Folick’s third full-length album and yet another expansive exploration of what makes her tick. On “Erotica Veronica“, her primary focus is desire and embodiment. The album, which plays out like a psychosexual epic, is sonically rich, overflowing with orchestral flourishes, spiralling song structures and lived-in acoustic textures that render Folick’s clear-eyed lyricism in vivid detail.
Youth Lagoon’s fifth album, “Rarely Do I Dream“, feels like being caught in the memory of a dream: hazy, removed, and slightly disorienting. Trevor Powers’ follow-up to “Heaven Is a Junkyard” is also ripe with trickling textures, from the delicate piano runs sprinkled across “Football” to the jazzy drumming on “Gumshoe (Dracula From Arkansas).” Powers keeps Youth Lagoon’s latest sounding emotionally familiar and musically alluring. Rooted in love and childhood memoir, ‘Rarely Do I Dream’ is a triumph of American gothic imagination — where storybook innocence dissolves into a radioactive billow of teenage drifters, drug-addled hustlers, and old-world folklore.
Drifting between propulsive electronica and hallucinatory rock songs, Powers’ singular voice always glows front and centre as the neon road sign pointing home.
released February 21, 2025
“Rarely Do I Dream”. All songs written and performed by Trevor Powers (aka Youth Lagoon).
This new release has a sound more closely likened to the folk/acoustic material of the middle years than outright rockers, but it is, without doubt, classic Jethro Tull music. Anderson’s signatures are there in his soft and nuanced vocals, flute solos and Elizabethan melodies and his accompanying band do an excellent job behind him. The writing is a more personal tone than usual from Ian Anderson and he sometimes wears his heart on both sleeves, albeit not in the falsely emotional manner of standard rock and pop.
Some of the songs were laid down as instrumental demos and jams, and these have grown into fully fleshed out songs. The same musicians were used on the demo tracks as the final recordings so there is no gap in the styles and songs of the rest of the alum.
After two consecutive new Jethro Tull album releases in 2022 and 2023, another collection – ‘Curious Ruminant’ – is unleashed on the 7th March 2025. Consisting of nine tracks varying in length from two and half minutes to almost seventeen minutes, this is an album of mostly full band music. Amongst the musicians featured are former keyboardist Andrew Giddings and drummer James Duncan, along with the current band members David Goodier, John O’Hara, Scott Hammond and, making his recording debut with the band, guitarist Jack Clark.
Jethro Tull Announce ‘The Tipu House’ – second single from ‘Curious Ruminant’
The album consisting of nine new tracks varying in length from two and half minutes to almost seventeen minutes, this is an album of mostly full band music. Following the launch of the albums title track in January, they are now pleased to reveal the second single “The Tipu House”.
Ian describes “The Tipu House” as a song of aspiration in adversity, and comments: Our societies are filled with those who have risen from relative poverty to positions of greatness in the world and their successes are a beacon of hope for the rest of us, even if “greatness” is a relative concept at the end of it all.
Ian Anderson had been saying for months following the release of “RökFlöte” that he would embark on a new project in late 2023. He waited only a few weeks before the first notions began to solidify into some drafted words of intent and in May 2024, some unfinished music recorded earlier with John O’Hara, DavidGoodier and James Duncan became the starting point for the new songs as they took shape.
Writing the lyrics and melodies for all the newly written material came very quickly once he began in earnest during June and just seemed to slot right in to the musical feel and styles of the earlier recordings.
Anderson’s writing here is often on a more personal level of lyric content than we are used to hearing. Interspersed with his usual observational descriptions are the slightly more heart-on-sleeve moments of soul-baring albeit not on the topics more often paraded by the usual I-me lyric merchants of pop and rock.
Some of the songs are developed from unfinished instrumental demos made some years ago although this does not result in a huge stylistic divide to jump out at the listener. Apart from the signature flute solos and melodies, accordion, mandolin, acoustic and tenor guitars feature on several tracks too, so the subtle backdrop of acoustic and folk rock serves to remind of the Tull heritage of the 70s.
‘Curious Ruminant’ will be available on several different formats, including a Ltd Deluxe Ultra Clear 180g 2LP + 2CD + Blu-ray Artbook & Ltd Deluxe 2CD+Blu-ray Artbook. Both of these feature the main album, alternative stereo mixes & a blu-ray containing Dolby Atmos & 5.1 Surround Sound (once again undertaken by Bruce Soord of The Pineapple Thief), as well as exclusive interview material.
The Ltd Deluxe vinyl artbook also includes in 2 exclusive art-prints. The album will also be available as a Special Edition CD Digipak, Gatefold 180g LP + LP-booklet & as Digital Album (in both stereo & Dolby Atmos).
Ian Anderson – Flute, Guitar, Bouzouki, Mandolin, Harmonica, Vocals, Jack Clark – Guitar, Scott Hammond – Drums and percussion, John O’Hara – Orchestral conductor, piano, keyboards and accordion, David Goodier – Bass guitar and double bass plus former keyboardist Andrew Giddings and drummer James Duncan.
The Fat Angel Sings 